DIY Wood Plank Wall

3 Materials

$150

4 Hours

Medium

Sometimes, all it takes is adding an accent to one wall in a room to change the entire mood of your house. A wood plank wall could be just the accent you're looking for! Take a look at the video below to see how you can add a wood plank wall to your home:

It is really pretty straight forward, but maybe seeing the steps will demystify some of the process for you.

It will help if you will get your materials ready before the day you are ready to instal. I was actually doing this at my sister's house, so she already had the material, and stained it on one side the previous week. That way, it was ready to just put on the wall when I arrived.

Next, mark the studs on the wall. Just use a regular stud finder and a long level. Studs are not always perfectly vertical, but this will allow you to hit them most of the time.

Start at the bottom near the baseboard. I guess you can start at the top, but I wanted to use gravity to my advantage and not have to find that with each row.

Cut off the end of one board at the miter saw, and then either measure what you need it to be so you can make your cut, or just use a full-length board. If you use the full length of the board, don't forget to cut a little bit off of the other end as well. We noticed that some of the ends were not square (meaning, they were not 90 degrees to the sides.)

Next, start on the next row. You can rest the next row on the first row, but keep an eye on how level it is. You don't have to make sure it is perfectly level, but you don't want to get too far out, because it will be exaggerated as you go.

If there are any outlets on the wall, be sure to mark them so you can cut out a spot in the board to go around the outlet.

Use a jigsaw to cut part of the board out to fit the outlet.

I used a small air compressor and an 18ga nail gun to attach the boards to the wall. Be sure to put the nails into the studs that you marked earlier. TIP: if you will take a little extra time to put the nails in the same spot for each row, it gives it a nice look. You can barely see the nail heads below the surface anyway, but it just looks a little more uniform.

Keep going up the wall as you did with the first two rows. That's really all there is to it. For this size wall and the material that we had, what worked best for us is to put a full-length board starting at one side of the wall, measure the gap that was left and cut another piece to go in there. Then, start with a full-length board from the opposite wall, and repeat the process. It gives a nice look.

Go all of the way up until you reach the crown moulding. I ran into a slight problem, as you will with most houses, where the crown moulding was not perfectly level with the base moulding. There was a slightly larger gap on one side than the other side. In the end, you couldn't even tell, because it was over 10 feet in the air. Don't fret about what won't be seen.

All that's left now is to enjoy your new space! Sit back and let the compliments come rolling in.

If you're liking what I've shown you, check out my YouTube channel:

http://youtube.com/bruceaulrich

or my website

www.bruceaulrich.com

I post regular project videos there of different things I'm building or improving.